Fazlur Rahman Khan

Fazlur Rahman Khan
Fazlur Rahman Khan
Born	April 3 1929 Dhaka, Bangladesh
Died	March 27, 1982(1982-03-27) (aged 52)
Nationality	Bangladeshi
Education	BUET
Occupation	Engineer
Engineering career
Discipline	Civil,
Significant design	Sears Tower

For other people named Fazl ur Rahman, see Fazl ur Rahman (disambiguation).

Fazlur Rahman Khan (Bengali: ফজলুর রহমান খান Fozlur Rôhman Khan) (April 3, 1929 - March 27, 1982), born in Dhaka, Bengal (now Bangladesh), was a Bangladeshi American structural engineer. He is regarded as the "Einstein of structural engineering" and considered "the greatest structural engineer of the second half of the 20th century" for his constructions of the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center, and for his designs of structural systems that remain fundamental to modern high-rise and supertall skyscraper construction, including the concepts of the frame-tube structure, X-bracing, sky lobby, shear wall frame interaction system, tube-in-tube structure, trussed tube, bundled tube, and composite system. He is considered the central figure behind the "Second Chicago School" of architecture.

Biography

Fazlur Rahman Khan hails from the village of Bhandarikandi in Shibchar Upazila, Madaripur District, Dhaka Division. He was born on 3 April 1929, in Dhaka. His father, Khan Bahadur Abdur Rahman Khan, was a renowned educator and high government official in the education department.

Education

As a boy, Khan's father instilled in him the importance of an education, not only early education but a continued education. For this reason, Khan went to undergraduate school and then graduate school.

Khan completed his undergraduate coursework at the Bengal Engineering College, University of Calcutta (Now Bengal Engineering & Science University, Shibpur). He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Dhaka in 1951 while placing first in his class. A Fulbright Scholarship and a Pakistani government scholarship enabled him to travel to the United States in 1952 where he pursued advanced studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In three years Khan earned two Master's degrees — one in structural engineering and one in theoretical and applied mechanics — and a PhD in structural engineering.

Although Khan was finished with school and now in the workforce, he still continued to learn. He taught himself how to program the new computer system which SOM purchased in 1961. He then taught his colleagues how to use the new programs.

Khan realized the value of his education and encouraged his daughter Yasmin along a similar path. However, he did not push her into structural engineering, she found her passion for this on her own. Her experiences with her father influenced her education and her work. Yasmin later wrote many articles and books including Engineering Architecture: The Vision of Fazlur R. Khan, a tribute to her father.

Career

In 1955, employed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, he began working in Chicago, Illinois. During the 1960s and 1970s, he became noted for his efficient designs for Chicago’s 100-story John Hancock Center and 110-story Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world in its time and still the tallest in the United States since its completion in 1974. He is also responsible for designing notable buildings in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.

One of the foremost structural engineers of the 20th century, Fazlur Khan epitomized both structural engineering achievement and creative collaborative effort between architect and engineer. He believed that "only when architectural design is grounded in structural realities — thus celebrating architecture's nature as a constructive art, rooted in the earth — can the resulting aesthetics … have a transcendental value and quality."

Fazlur Khan's personal papers are held by the Ryerson and Burnham Archives at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Personal interests

Outside of work, Khan enjoyed spending time with his family (wife Liselotte and daughter Yasmin). He enjoyed singing, poetry, and table tennis. He was also heavily involved with creating public opinion and garnering emergency funding for Bengali people during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. He created the Chicago-based organization known as Bangladesh Emergency Welfare Appeal.

Innovations

Dr. Fazlur Khan realized that the rigid steel frame structure that had "dominated tall building design and construction so long was not the only system fitting for tall buildings", marking "the beginning of a new era of skyscraper revolution in terms of multiple structural systems." Dr. Fazlur Khan's design innovations significantly improved the construction of high-rise buildings, enabling them to withstand enormous forces generated on these super structures. These new designs opened an economic door for contractors, engineers, architects, and investors, providing vast amounts of real estate space on minimal plots of land. His innovations also allowed efficient skyscrapers to take on various shapes, no longer needing to be box-shaped.

Tube structural systems

Khan's central innovation in skyscraper design and construction was the idea of the "tube" structural system for tall buildings, including the "framed tube", "trussed tube" and "bundled tube" variations.[1][2] The constructions of most supertall skyscrapers since the 1960s, including the construction of the World Trade Center, Petronas Towers and Jin Mao Building, employ a tube structural system.

Framed tube

Since 1963, the new structural system of framed tubes became highly influential in skyscraper design and construction. Khan defined the framed tube structure as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form a vertical tube-like structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation." Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube. Horizontal loads, for example wind, are supported by the structure as a whole. About half the exterior surface is available for windows. Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space. Where larger openings like garage doors are required, the tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer girders used to maintain structural integrity.

The first building to apply the tube-frame construction was the DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments building which Khan designed and was completed in Chicago in 1963. This laid the foundations for the framed tube structure used in the construction of the World Trade Center.

The John Hancock Center, designed by Fazlur Khan in 1965 and completed in 1969.

Trussed tube and X-bracing

Khan pioneered several other variations of the tube structure design. One of these was the concept of X-bracing, or the "trussed tube", first employed for the John Hancock Centre. This concept reduced the lateral load on the building by transferring the load into the exterior columns. This allows for a reduced need for interior columns thus creating more floor space. This concept can be seen in the John Hancock Center, designed in 1965 and completed in 1969. One of the most famous buildings of the structural expressionist style, the skyscraper's distinctive X-bracing exterior is actually a hint that the structure's skin is indeed part of its 'tubular system'. This idea is one of the architectural techniques the building used to climb to record heights (the tubular system is essentially the spine that helps the building stand upright during wind and earthquake loads). This X-bracing allows for both higher performance from tall structures and the ability to open up the inside floorplan (and usable floor space) if the architect desires. Original features such as the skin, pioneered by Fazlur Khan, have made the John Hancock Center an architectural icon.

In contrast to earlier steel-frame structures, such as the Empire State Building (1931) and Chase Manhattan Bank Building (1961) which both required around 275 kilograms of steel per square metre, the John Hancock Centre was far more efficient, requiring only 145 kilograms of steel per square metre. The trussed tube concept was applied to many later skyscrapers, including the Onterie Center, Citigroup Center and Bank of China Tower.

Sears Tower, designed by Fazlur Khan and completed in 1974, was the tallest building in the world at the time of its construction

Bundle tube

One of Khan's most important variations of the tube structure concept was the "bundled tube", which he used for the Sears Tower and One Magnificent Mile. The bundle tube design was not only the most efficient in economic terms, but it was also "innovative in its potential for versatile formulation of architectural space. Efficient towers no longer had to be box-like; the tube-units could take on various shapes and could be bundled together in different sorts of groupings."

Concrete tube structures

The last major buildings constructed by Khan were the One Magnificent Mile and Onterie Center in Chicago, which employed his bundled tube and trussed tube system designs respectively. In contrast to his earlier buildings which were mainly steel, his last two buildings were concrete. His earlier DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments building, built in 1963 in Chicago, was also a concrete building with a tube structure.

Sky lobby

The first sky lobby was also designed by Khan for the John Hancock Center. Later buildings with sky lobbies include the World Trade Center, Petronas Twin Towers and Taipei 101. The 44th-floor sky lobby of the John Hancock Center also features the first high-rise indoor swimming pool, which remains the highest in America. This was the first time that people could have the opportunity to work and live 'in the sky'.

Professional milestones

• In 1961, was made a Participating Associate in Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; in 1966 he became an Associate Partner and in 1970 a General Partner - the only engineer partner at the time.
• Received an Alumni Honor Dada from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1972), an Honorary Doctor of Science from Northwestern University (1973), and an Honorary Doctor of Engineering from Lehigh University (1980).
• In 1973, elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
• He was cited five times among 'Men Who Served the Best Interests of the Construction Industry' by Engineering News-Record (for 1965, 1968, 1970, 1971, and 1979); and in 1972 he was named 'Construction's Man of the Year'. He was posthumously honored with the International Award of Merit in Structural Engineering from the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering and a Distinguished Service Award from the AIA Chicago Chapter (both in 1982).
• In 1983 the American Institute of Architects recognized Fazlur Khan's contributions with an AIA Institute Honor for Distinguished Achievement. The same year he was honored with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture "for the Structure of the Hajj Terminal, An Outstanding Contribution to Architecture for Muslims," which was completed over the last years of his life.
• He was honored posthumously by the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois with the John Parmer Award in 1987 and with the commissioning of a sculpture by the Spanish artist Carlos Marinas, which is located in the lobby of the Sears Tower.
• In 1998 the city of Chicago named the intersection of Jackson and Franklin Streets (at the foot of the Sears Tower) “Fazlur R. Khan Way.”
• Made contributions in creating public opinion and amassing emergency fund for the people of Bangladesh during its War of Liberation. The Government of Bangladesh posthumously awarded him Independence Day Medal 1999 in recognition of his contributions, and a commemorative postal stamp was published in his memory.
• He was honored posthumously by The Bangladeshi-American Foundation, Inc. (BAFI) in May 2005 as the most famous Bangladeshi-American of the 20th Century.

List of buildings

Some the most famous buildings which Khan was responsible for designing and constructing include the following:

• DeWitt-Chestnut Apartments, Chicago, 1963
• John Hancock Centre, Chicago, 1965-1969
• Sears Tower, Chicago, 1970-1973
• Hajj Terminal, King Abdulaziz International Airport, Jeddah, 1974-1980
• King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 1977–1978
• One Magnificent Mile, Chicago, completed 1983
• Onterie Center, Chicago, completed 1986

Other honors

Among Khan's other accomplishments, he received the Wason Medal (1971) and Alfred Lindau Award (1973) from the American Concrete Institute (ACI); the Thomas Middlebrooks Award (1972) and the Ernest Howard Award (1977) from ASCE; the Kimbrough Medal (1973) from the American Institute of Steel Construction; the Oscar Faber medal (1973) from the Institution of Structural Engineers, London; the AIA Institute Honor for Distinguished Achievement (1983) from the American Institute of Architects; and the John Parmer Award (1987) from Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (Engineering Legends, Richard Weingardt).

Quotes

"The technical man must not be lost in his own technology; he must be able to appreciate life, and life is art, drama, music, and most importantly, people." Fazlur Khan (Engineering Legends, Richard Weingardt)

Further reading

• Weingardt, Richard G. "Engineering Legends: Great American Civil Engineers." ASCE Press, 2005.
• Khan, Y. S. "Engineering Architecture: the vision of Fazlur R. Khan." New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

External links

• Website dedicated to Fazlur Rahman Khan
• [3]
• "Evolution of Concrete Skyscrapers". Retrieved 2007-05-14.
• Fazlur Rahman Khan at Structurae